The present invention relates generally to manifolds and heat exchangers formed from polymer materials and to methods of producing the same.
Heat exchangers are used in a wide variety of applications and have a wide variety of geometries and designs for specific applications. Most often, heat exchangers are formed from a metal material such as copper, aluminum or stainless steel due to the favorable heat transfer characteristics that are displayed by such materials. Although metal heat exchanger designs work well for many applications, metals tend to be more expensive or more subject to corrosion than certain other materials such as plastics and there are some applications where it is desirable to form a heat exchanger from lower cost polymer materials.
One class of heat exchangers contemplate dividing a feed stream of one heat exchange medium into multiple streams that pass through a second heat exchange medium. Such heat exchanger typically employ inlet and outlet manifolds to divide and reunite the feed stream into/from a number of relatively narrow tubes that are arranged to pass through the second heat exchange medium. The fabrication of such manifolds can be difficult when the tubes and/or manifolds are formed from a plastic (or other polymer) material. Although polymer manifold and polymer heat exchanger designs exist, there are continuing efforts to provide improved manifold and heat exchanger designs that are well suited for use in specific applications. The present application describes a low cost polymer manifold design that is well suited for use in a variety of heat exchanger designs. The polymer manifold may also have extensive applications outside of the heat exchanger field.